Virgin and Child with The infant Saint John the Baptist
(Florence 1484 - 1525)
The panel would have been among the seized assets of Cavalier d'Arpino, accused in 1607 by Paul V's tax authorities of the illegal possession of firearms. The painting, initially attributed to the school of Raphael, has been recognised by critics as a work by Franciabigio: it is an early work in which the artist, going back to the traditional Florentine circular format, places the sacred group in a vast landscape, a composition that shows clear analogies to masterpieces by the great Raphael. The Virgin, whose face recalls the style of Andrea del Sarto, is holding a pomegranate, a symbol of death and rebirth. Its intensely red seeds recall the blood that Christ shed for humanity.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Provenance
(?) Rome, collection of Giuseppe Cesari, 1607; (?) Rome, collection of Scipione Borghese, 1607; Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 21. Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1907 Luigi Bartolucci (disinfestazione con olio di cedro; riparazione dei buchi)
- 1992 Istituto Centrale del Restauro (disinfestazione)
Commentary
It is unknown when this painting entered the Borghese Collection. According to Paola della Pergola (1959), it came from the painting collection of Giuseppe Cesari that was sequestered in 1607 by the tax officials of Paul V, tentatively identifying it as the ‘round painting of the Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist’, although in the absence of other information, this description alone is of course too generic to know for certain.
The painting, which is difficult to identify in the eighteenth-century inventories for the same reason, is instead clearly recognisable in the fideicommissary lists of 1833, where it is described as by the school of Raphael. Given the same attribution by Giovanni Piancastelli in the catalogue of the Galleria Borghese’s paintings (1891), it was attributed to Giuliano Bugiardini for the first time by Adolfo Venturi (1893), a theory rejected by Roberto Longhi (1928) who, agreeing with an opinion expressed by Giovanni Morelli (1897), attributed the painting to Franciabigio, dating it to about 1518. However, Longhi had misunderstood Morelli, who was not actually referring to this work, but rather the Marriage of St Catherine (inv. 177) by that artist. Despite this mistake, scholars embraced Longhi’s attribution, which was confirmed shortly after by Bernard Berenson (1935), followed by Paola della Pergola (1959) and, in 1974, Susan McKillop.
The painting, the round shape of which locates it neatly in the milieu of Florentine painting, depicts the Madonna and Child with the young St John the Baptist, in a Raphaelesque composition set in a vast landscape. The Madonna, the face of whom echoes the style of Andrea del Sarto, holds a pomegranate in her hand, a symbol of death and rebirth, the intense red hue of its seeds referencing the blood shed by Christ for humanity.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 299;
- J. Burckhardt, W. Bode, Der Cicerone, II, Leipzig 1893, p. 680;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 115;
- G. Morelli, Della Pittura Italiana. Studi Storici Critici: Le Gallerie Borghese e Doria Pamphili in Roma, Milano 1897, p. 93;
- J. Cartwright, The Painters of Florence from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century, New York 1901, p. 333;
- B. Berenson, Florentine Painters, New York 1909, p. 125;
- G. Cantalamessa, Note manoscritte al Catalogo di A. Venturi del 1893, Arch. Gall. Borghese, 1911-1912, n. 177;
- J.A. Crowe, G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in North Italy, VI, London 1912, p. 120;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 195;
- B. Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento, Milano 1936, p. 181;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 26, n. 27;
- F. Sricchia Santoro, Per il Franciabigio, in “Paragone Arte”, I, 1963, p. 8;
- S. McKillop, Franciabigio, Los Angeles-London 1974, pp. 90, 171;
- P. Moreno, C. Stefani, Galleria Borghese, Milano 2000, p. 292;
- M.E. Massimi, Giudici, Francesco, detto il Franciabigio, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LVI, 2001, ad vocem;
- K. Herrmann Fiore, Galleria Borghese Roma scopre un tesoro. Dalla pinacoteca ai depositi un museo che non ha più segreti, San Giuliano Milanese 2006, p. 149.
